The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  “Yeah. But we can make our wills, can’t we? And I don’t know where you get the idea, Bud, that you’ve got the whole say about him. We’re pardners, ain’t we? Share and share alike. Mines, mules, grub—kids—equal shares goes.”

  “That’s where you’re dead wrong. Mines and mules and grub is all right, but when it comes to this old Lovin Man, why—who was it found him, for gosh sake?”

  “Aw, git out!” Cash growled. “Don’t you reckon I’d have grabbed him off that squaw as quick as you did? I’ve humored you along, Bud, and let you hog him nights, and feed him and wash his clothes, and I ain’t kicked none, have I? But when it comes to prope’ty—”

  “You ain’t goin’ to horn in there, neither. Anyway, we ain’t got so darn much the kid’ll miss your share, Cash.”

  “Yeah. All the more reason why he’ll need it I don’t see how you’re going to stop me from willing my share where I please. And when you come down to facts, Bud, why—you want to recollect that I plumb forgot to report that kid, when I was in town. And I ain’t a doubt in the world but what his folks would be glad enough—”

  “Forget that stuff!” Bud’s tone was so sharp that Lovin Child turned clear around to look up curiously into his face. “You know why you never reported him, doggone yuh! You couldn’t give him up no easier than I could. And I’ll tell the world to its face that if anybody gets this kid now they’ve pretty near got to fight for him. It ain’t right, and it ain’t honest. It’s stealing to keep him, and I never stole a brass tack in my life before. But he’s mine as long as I live and can hang on to him. And that’s where I stand. I ain’t hidin’ behind no kind of alibi. The old squaw did tell me his folks was dead; but if you’d ask me, I’d say she was lying when she said it. Chances are she stole him. I’m sorry for his folks, supposing he’s got any. But I ain’t sorry enough for ’em to give him up if I can help it. I hope they’ve got more, and I hope they’ve gentled down by this time and are used to being without him. Anyway, they can do without him now easier than what I can, because…” Bud did not finish that sentence, except by picking Lovin Child up in his arms and squeezing him as hard as he dared. He laid his face down for a minute on Lovin Child’s head, and when he raised it his lashes were wet.

  “Say, old-timer, you need a hair cut. Yuh know it?” he said, with a huskiness in his voice, and pulled a tangle playfully. Then his eyes swung round defiantly to Cash. “It’s stealing to keep him, but I can’t help it. I’d rather die right here in my tracks than give up this little ole kid. And you can take that as it lays, because I mean it.”

  Cash sat quiet for a minute or two, staring down at the floor. “Yeah. I guess there’s two of us in that fix,” he observed in his dry way, lifting his eyebrows while he studied a broken place in the side of his overshoe. “All the more reason why we should protect the kid, ain’t it? My idea is that we ought to both of us make our wills right here and now. Each of us to name the other for guardeen, in case of accident, and each one picking a name for the kid, and giving him our share in the claims and anything else we may happen to own.” He stopped abruptly, his jaw sagging a little at some unpleasant thought.

  “I don’t know—come to think of it, I can’t just leave the kid all my property. I—I’ve got a kid of my own, and if she’s alive—I ain’t heard anything of her for fifteen years and more, but if she’s alive she’d come in for a share. She’s a woman grown by this time. Her mother died when she was a baby. I married the woman I hired to take care of her and the house—like a fool. When we parted, she took the kid with her. She did think a lot of her, I’ll say that much for her, and that’s all I can say in her favor. I drifted around and lost track of ’em. Old woman, she married again, and I heard that didn’t pan out, neither. Anyway, she kept the girl, and gave her the care and schooling that I couldn’t give. I was a drifter.

  “Well, she can bust the will if I leave her out, yuh see. And if the old woman gets a finger in the pie, it’ll be busted, all right. I can write her down for a hundred dollars perviding she don’t contest. That’ll fix it. And the rest goes to the kid here. But I want him to have the use of my name, understand. Something-or-other Markham Moore ought to suit all hands well enough.”

  Bud, holding Lovin Child on his knees, frowned a little at first. But when he looked at Cash, and caught the wistfulness in his eyes, he surrendered warm-heartedly.

  “A couple of old he-hens like us—we need a chick to look after,” he said whimsically. “I guess Markham Moore ought to be good enough for most any kid. And if it ain’t, by gosh, we’ll make it good enough! If I ain’t been all I should be, there’s no law against straightening up. Markham Moore goes as it lays—hey, Lovins?” But Lovin Child had gone to sleep over his foster fathers’ disposal of his future. His little yellow head was wabbling on his limp neck, and Bud cradled him in his arms and held him so.

  “Yeah. But what are we going to call him?” Methodical Cash wanted the whole matter settled at one conference, it seemed.

  “Call him? Why, what’ve we been calling him, the last two months?”

  “That,” Cash retorted, “depended on what devilment he was into when we called!”

  “You said it all, that time. I guess, come to think of it—tell you what, Cash, let’s call him what the kid calls himself. That’s fair enough. He’s got some say in the matter, and if he’s satisfied with Lovin, we oughta be. Lovin Markam Moore ain’t half bad. Then if he wants to change it when he grows up, he can.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s as good as anything. I’d hate to see him named Cassius. Well, now’s as good a time as any to make them wills, Bud. We oughta have a couple of witnesses, but we can act for each other, and I guess it’ll pass. You lay the kid down, and we’ll write ’em and have it done with and off our minds. I dunno—I’ve got a couple of lots in Phoenix I’ll leave to the girl. By rights she should have ’em. Lovins, here, ’ll have my share in all mining claims; these two I’ll name ’specially, because I expect them to develop into paying mines; the Blind Lodge, anyway.”

  A twinge of jealousy seized Bud. Cash was going ahead a little too confidently in his plans for the kid. He did not want to hurt old Cash’s feelings, and of course he needed Cash’s assistance if he kept Lovin Child for his own. But Cash needn’t think he was going to claim the kid himself.

  “All right—put it that way. Only, when you’re writing it down, you make it read ‘child of Bud Moore’ or something like that. You can will him the moon, if you want, and you can have your name sandwiched in between his and mine. But get this, and get it right. He’s mine, and if we ever split up, the kid goes with me. I’ll tell the world right now that this kid belongs to me, and where I go he goes. You got that?”

  “You don’t have to beller at the top of your voice, do yuh?” snapped Cash, prying the cork out of the ink bottle with his jackknife. “Here’s another pen point. Tie it onto a stick or something and git to work before you git to putting it off.”

  Leaning over the table facing each other, they wrote steadily for a few minutes. Then Bud began to flag, and finally he stopped and crumpled the sheet of tablet paper into a ball. Cash looked up, lifted his eyebrows irritatedly, and went on with his composition.

  Bud sat nibbling the end of his makeshift penholder. The obstacle that had loomed in Cash’s way and had constrained him to reveal the closed pages of his life, loomed large in Bud’s way also. Lovin Child was a near and a very dear factor in his life—but when it came to sitting down calmly and setting his affairs in order for those who might be left behind, Lovin Child was not the only person he must think of. What of his own man-child? What of Marie?

  He looked across at Cash writing steadily in his precise way, duly bequeathing his worldly goods to Lovin; owning, too, his responsibilities in another direction, but still making Lovin Child his chief heir so far as he knew. On the spur of the moment Bud had thought to do the same thing. But could he do it?

  He seemed to see his own baby standing wistfully aloof,
pushed out of his life that this baby he had no right to keep might have all of his affections, all of his poor estate. And Marie, whose face was always in the back of his memory, a tearful, accusing vision that would not let him be—he saw Marie working in some office, earning the money to feed and clothe their child. And Lovin Child romping up and down the cabin, cuddled and scolded and cared for as best an awkward man may care for a baby—a small, innocent usurper.

  Bud dropped his face in his palms and tried to think the thing out coldly, clearly, as Cash had stated his own case. Cash did not know where his own child was, and he did not seem to care greatly. He was glad to salve his conscience with a small bequest, keeping the bulk—if so tenuous a thing as Cash’s fortune may be said to have bulk—for this baby they two were hiding away from its lawful parents. Cash could do it; why couldn’t be? He raised his head and looked over at Lovin Child, asleep in his new and rumpled little finery. Why did his own baby come between them now, and withhold his hand from doing the same?

  Cash finished, glanced curiously across at Bud, looked down at what he had written, and slid the sheet of paper across.

  “You sign it, and then if you don’t know just how to word yours, you can use this for a pattern. I’ve read law books enough to know this will get by, all right. It’s plain, and it tells what I want, and that’s sufficient to hold in court.”

  Bud read it over apathetically, signed his name as witness, and pushed the paper back.

  “That’s all right for you,” he said heavily. “Your kid is grown up now, and besides, you’ve got other property to give her. But—it’s different with me. I want this baby, and I can’t do without him. But I can’t give him my share in the claims, Cash. I—there’s others that’s got to be thought of first.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LOVIN CHILD STRIKES IT RICH

  It was only the next day that Bud was the means of helping Lovin Child find a fortune for himself; which eased Bud’s mind considerably, and balanced better his half of the responsibility. Cutting out the dramatic frills, then, this is what happened to Lovin Child and Bud:

  They were romping around the cabin, like two puppies that had a surplus of energy to work off. Part of the time Lovin Child was a bear, chasing Bud up and down the dead line, which was getting pretty well worn out in places. After that, Bud was a bear and chased Lovin. And when Lovin Child got so tickled he was perfectly helpless in the corner where he had sought refuge, Bud caught him and swung him up to his shoulder and let him grab handfuls of dirt out of the roof.

  Lovin Child liked that better than being a bear, and sifted Bud’s hair full of dried mud, and threw the rest on the floor, and frequently cried “Tell a worl’!” which he had learned from Bud and could say with the uncanny pertinency of a parrot.

  He had signified a desire to have Bud carry him along the wall, where some lovely lumps of dirt protruded temptingly over a bulging log. Then he leaned and grabbed with his two fat hands at a particularly big, hard lump. It came away in his hands and fell plump on the blankets of the bunk, half blinding Bud with the dust that came with it.

  “Hey! You’ll have all the chinkin’ out of the dang shack, if you let him keep that lick up, Bud,” Cash grumbled, lifting his eyebrows at the mess.

  “Tell a worl’!” Lovin Child retorted over his shoulder, and made another grab.

  This time the thing he held resisted his baby strength. He pulled and he grunted, he kicked Bud in the chest and grabbed again. Bud was patient, and let him fuss—though in self-defense he kept his head down and his eyes away from the expected dust bath.

  “Stay with it, Boy; pull the darn roof down, if yuh want. Cash’ll get out and chink ’er up again.”

  “Yeah. Cash will not,” the disapproving one amended the statement gruffly. “He’s trying to get the log outa the wall, Bud.”

  “Well, let him try, doggone it. Shows he’s a stayer. I wouldn’t have any use for him if he didn’t have gumption enough to tackle things too big for him, and you wouldn’t either. Stay with ’er, Lovins! Doggone it, can’t yuh git that log outa there nohow? Uh-h! A big old grunt and a big old heave—uh-h! I’ll tell the world in words uh one syllable, he’s some stayer.”

  “Tell a worl’!” chuckled Lovin Child, and pulled harder at the thing he wanted.

  “Hey! The kid’s got hold of a piece of gunny sack or something. You look out, Bud, or he’ll have all that chinkin’ out. There’s no sense in lettin’ him tear the whole blame shack to pieces, is there?”

  “Can if he wants to. It’s his shack as much as it’s anybody’s.” Bud shifted Lovin Child more comfortably on his shoulder and looked up, squinting his eyes half shut for fear of dirt in them.

  “For the love of Mike, kid, what’s that you’ve got? Looks to me like a piece of buckskin, Cash. Here, you set down a minute, and let Bud take a peek up there.”

  “Bud—pik-k?” chirped Lovin Child from the blankets, where Bud had deposited him unceremoniously.

  “Yes, Bud pik-k.” Bud stepped up on the bunk, which brought his head above the low eaves. He leaned and looked, and scraped away the caked mud. “Good glory! The kid’s found a cache of some kind, sure as you live!” And he began to claw out what had been hidden behind the mud.

  First a buckskin bag, heavy and grimed and knobby. Gold inside it, he knew without looking. He dropped it down on the bunk, carefully so as not to smash a toe off the baby. After that he pulled out four baking-powder cans, all heavy as lead. He laid his cheek against the log and peered down the length of it, and jumped down beside the bunk.

  “Kid’s found a gold mine of his own, and I’ll bet on it,” he cried excitedly. “Looky, Cash!”

  Cash was already looking, his eyebrows arched high to match his astonishment. “Yeah. It’s gold, all right. Old man Nelson’s hoard, I wouldn’t wonder. I’ve always thought it was funny he never found any gold in this flat, long as he lived here. And traces of washing here and there, too. Well!”

  “Looky, Boy!” Bud had the top off a can, and took out a couple of nuggets the size of a cooked Lima bean. “Here’s the real stuff for yuh.

  “It’s yours, too—unless—did old Nelson leave any folks, Cash, do yuh know?”

  “They say not. The county buried him, they say. And nobody ever turned up to claim him or what little he left. No, I guess there’s nobody got any better right to it than the kid. We’ll inquire around and see. But seein’ the gold is found on the claim, and we’ve got the claim according to law, looks to me like—”

  “Well, here’s your clean-up, old prospector. Don’t swallow any, is all. let’s weigh it out, Cash, and see how much it is, just for a josh.”

  Lovin Child had nuggets to play with there on the bed, and told the world many unintelligible things about it. Cash and Bud dumped all the gold into a pan, and weighed it out on the little scales Cash had for his tests. It was not a fortune, as fortunes go. It was probably all the gold Nelson had panned out in a couple of years, working alone and with crude devices. A little over twenty-three hundred dollars it amounted to, not counting the nuggets which Lovin Child had on the bunk with him.

  “Well, it’s a start for the kid, anyway,” Bud said, leaning back and regarding the heap with eyes shining. “I helped him find it, and I kinda feel as if I’m square with him now for not giving him my half the claim. Twenty-three hundred would be a good price for a half interest, as the claims stand, don’t yuh think, Cash?”

  “Yeah—well, I dunno’s I’d sell for that. But on the showing we’ve got so far—yes, five thousand, say, for the claims would be good money.”

  “Pretty good haul for a kid, anyway. He’s got a couple of hundred dollars in nuggets, right there on the bunk. Let’s see, Lovins. Let Bud have ’em for a minute.”

  Then it was that Lovin Child revealed a primitive human trait. He would not give up the gold. He held fast to one big nugget, spread his fat legs over the remaining heap of them, and fought Bud’s hand away with the other fist.

  �
�No, no, no! Tell a worl’ no, no, no!” he remonstrated vehemently, until Bud whooped with laughter.

  “All right—all right! Keep your gold, durn it. You’re like all the rest—minute you get your paws on to some of the real stuff, you go hog-wild over it.”

  Cash was pouring the fine gold back into the buck skin bag and the baking-powder cans.

  “Let the kid play with it,” he said. “Getting used to gold when he’s little will maybe save him from a lot of foolishness over it when he gets big. I dunno, but it looks reasonable to me. Let him have a few nuggets if he wants. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say; maybe he won’t get to thinkin’ too much of it if he’s got it around under his nose all the time. Same as everything else. It’s the finding that hits a feller hardest, Bud—the hunting for it and dreaming about it and not finding it. What say we go up to the claim for an hour or so? Take the kid along. It won’t hurt him if he’s bundled up good. It ain’t cold today, anyhow.”

  That night they discussed soberly the prospects of the claim and their responsibilities in the matter of Lovin Child’s windfall. They would quietly investigate the history of old Nelson, who had died a pauper in the eyes of the community, with all his gleanings of gold hidden away. They agreed that Lovin Child should not start off with one grain of gold that rightfully belonged to some one else—but they agreed the more cheerfully because neither man believed they would find any close relatives; a wife or children they decided upon as rightful heirs. Brothers, sisters, cousins, and aunts did not count. They were presumably able to look after themselves just as old Nelson had done. Their ethics were simple enough, surely.

  Barring, then, the discovery of rightful heirs, their plan was to take the gold to Sacramento in the spring, and deposit it there in a savings bank for one Lovins Markham Moore. They would let the interest “ride” with the principal, and they would—though neither openly confessed it to the other—from time to time add a little from their own earnings. Bud especially looked forward to that as a compromise with his duty to his own child. He intended to save every cent he could, and to start a savings account in the same bank, for his own baby, Robert Edward Moore—named for Bud. He could not start off with as large a sum as Lovins would have, and for that Bud was honestly sorry. But Robert Edward Moore would have Bud’s share in the claims, which would do a little toward evening things up.